The Postmodern Phenomena of New
Age Spirituality:
Examples in Popular Literature
by Mark Bair*
This paper is an attempt to better understand the new brand of
spirituality that is being written about on a popular level today . My concern
is that we better understand it so that we can both avoid deception in the
church and communicate the Christian gospel more clearly in the present
context. I believe we need updated apologetics rather than update theology
for the 1990's, as some have suggested. The first step in improving our
apologetics is trying to decipher what fonn the "fortresses raised up against
the knowledge of God" are presently taking. As Francis Shaeffer said before
there even was a tenn "New Age:"
If a man goes overseas for any length of time we would
expect him to learn the language of the country to which he
is going. More than this is needed, however, if he is really
going to communicate with the people among whom he is
living. He must learn about another language--that of the
thought fonns of the people to whom he speaks. Only so
will be have real communication with them. So it is with
the Christian church. Its responsibility is not only to hold
to the basic, scriptural principals of the Christian faith, but
to communicate these unchanging truths 'into' the
generation in which it is living.
Every generation of Christians has the problem of learning
how to speak meaningfully to its own age. It cannot be
solved without an understanding of the changing existential
situation which it faces. If we are to communicate the
Christian faith effectively, therefore, we must know and
understand the thought-fonns of our own generation. 1
*Mark Bair (M.A., ATS) is a pastor for Xenos Christian Fellowship in
Cincinnati, OH.
54
In order to aid the reader in the task of understanding our generation,
this paper will examine contemporary authors who represent spiritual ideas
that are counterfeits of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The reader I have in mind
is the concerned Christian worker who has a general awareness of the socalled New Age Movement, but is perhaps unaware of actual proponents of
these ideas and how they are introducing them. Before I get to those specific
ideas, I want to look at some introductory and background issues.
First of all, how should we categorize? While the tenn "New Age
Movement" can be helpful for generalizing about a broad set of trends, it can
also be misleading. For one thing, the tenn "movement" implies a somewhat
monolithic ideology and organization. For some it may conjure up the image
of a political movement. But that would miss its subtlety. However we
understand the New Age Movement, it is certainly neither a monolithic
ideology nor a centrally organized entity. As a Time article noted in
December 1987, it is a shifting kaleidoscope of "beliefs, fads, and rituals."
For these reasons, it can be hard to generalize about. Russell Chandler
observes:
By and large, New Age is a modem revival of ancient
religious traditions, along with a potpourri of influences:
Eastern mysticism, modem philosophy and psychology,
science and science fiction, and the counterculture of the
'50s and '60s ... Also contributing to the New Age way of
thinking is Chinese Taoism, which believes that there is a
single principal underlying everything (the Tao), Ancient
Gnosticism and its doctrine of enlightenment is also an
influence, as well as strands of Neoplatonism, medieval
witchcraft, Greek mythology, and Native American
thought. 2
While I believe this observation is true, it in no way describes any
one person. All these elements have their adherents, but most people would
not hold to ~l of them. For the mainstream American, a lot of items on that
list would be considered weird. So the problem with the tenn "New Age"
is that it tends to bring to mind people like Shirley MacLaine and "gurus" like
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Elizebeth Clare Prophet, and Maharaj Ji. One
might also think of Krishna, TM, Scientology, EST, Unification Church, and
55
Ouistian Science. And of course all these are dangerous . Undoubtedly they
have a combined total of millions.
However, I think that perhaps far more people are coming under a
more subtle but equally deceptive set of ideas I will refer to as the "New
Spirituality." The people who come under its influence would probably think
of the people and gurus mentioned above as extremists. I see both the larger
New Age Movement with its bizarre expressions, as well as the New
Spirituality as inevitable outgrowths of the loss of objectivity and cultural
authority on Western culture. If anyone statement expresses my observation
it is: if nothing is true, then everything is true. In other words, if nothing is
true in the objective sense, then anything is possible in the subjective sense.
Anything can be true/or me. Os Guinness observed that" America is moving
fast from the old idea that everything means something to the new idea that
nothing means anything. "3 What he means is nothing means anything to
everybody. There is no perceived universal truth that applies to all people.
In his monumental work Dust of Death, Guinness illustrates what happens
when real objective truth is lost:
Early hunters on safari in Africa used to build their fires
high at night to keep away wild animals. But when the fires
burned low in the early hours of the morning, the hunters
would see all around them the approaching outlined shapes
of animals and a ring of encircling eyes in the darkness.
As we have witnessed the erosion and breakdown of the
Christian culture of the west, so we have seen the vacuum
filled by an upsurge of ideas that would have been
unthinkable when the fires of Christian culture were high.4
The effect of modernity and secularization has not been to rid society
of religion, but actually to spawn a more religious and superstitious culture.
How did this development take place? Let's take a look at the historical
background to Postmodernism.
The Shift from Modern to Posnnodern
Increasingly, authors both secular and Christian are referring to our
56
times as Postmodem. Not all agree on what it means or if it is an entirely
positive or negative development. Yet, few would argue that a fundamental
change in outlook is not impacting the culture at large, including the church.
Some theologians are even suggesting that the concept of God be changed to
fit the Postmodem outlook. Let's look at a couple of assessments.
John Polkinghome calls the intellectual setting today the "PostEnlightenment World." He describes the course of intellectual history since
the Enlightenment:
The thinkers of the Enlightenment sought by cold clear
reason to comprehend an objective world to determinate
order. They saw themselves as self-sufficient and were
confident of their powers and human perfectibility ... The
Enlightenment attitude had done its acid work and many
people's faith dissolved away. By a curious irony, as the
nineteenth century came to a close, the method and view of
the Enlightenment were themselves beginning to dissolve in
their tum. We now live in a post-Enlightenment age. The
essential character of Enlightenment thinking was to allow
the clear light of reason to play upon an objective and
determinate world. Scarcely a feature of that description
now survives intact.
At the same time as the human psyche has revealed its
shadowy and elusive depths, the physical world has denied
determinate objectivity at its basic roots. Heisenberg tells
us concerning electrons and other elementary particles that
if we know what they are doing we do not know where they
are, and if we know where they are we do not know what
they are doing. His uncertainty principal proclaims the
unpicturabiltiy of the quantum world ... The world known to
the twentieth century is a good deal curiouser and more
shadowy than the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries could
have conceived. s
Polkinghome is critical of the wholesale abandonment of reason that
so many are displaying these days: "Our century has seen a recurrent cult of
57
the absurd which is destructive of true reasoning. To acknowledge the limits
of rationality, objectivity, and detenninism is not to relinquish a belief in
reason, a respect for reality or a search for order. "6
Frederick Burnham notes the results on the certainty of our
knowledge:
Revelations in twentieth century physics have totally
undermined the epistemological pride of Victorian science
and brought the old era to a close. In the post-modem
world of quantwn phenomena, the foundation of reality is
elusive and indeterminate. Scientific language can no
longer be viewed as a set of universal, objective facts, but
rather as a set of research traditions, which, like religious
language, is born out of a particular community of
inquirers. The cultural hegemony of science has ended.
The fundamental characteristic of the new postmodenz era
is epistemological relativism. 7
I believe that this kind of relativism about what can be known is the
perfect soil for New Age Spirituality, as it appears among the radical fringe
as well as in the more mainstream expressions. Once certainty is lost,
anything is thinkable. To be shocked by New Age thought is to not
understand that it flows directly from this void of authority and meaning.
Furthennore, the barren dessert of atheistic materialism that prevailed for the
first half of this century was hard to live with. Gene Edward Veith describes
the revolt against materialism:
The twentieth century saw a new worldview, one which
accepted the bleak facts of materialism, while offering
meaning for the individual.
This worldview is
existentialism. According to existentialism, there is no
inherent meaning or purpose in life. The objective real is
absurd, void of any human significance. Meaning is not to
be discovered in the objective world; rather meaning is a
purely hwnan phenomena. While there is no readymade
meaning in life, individuals can create meaning for
themselves. This meaning, however, has no validity for
58
anyone else. No one can provide a meaning for anyone
else. Everyone must create their own meaning, but it must
remain private, personal, and unconnected to any sort of
objective truth ... Existentialism, then provides the rationale
for contemporary relativism. Religion becomes a purely
private affair, which cannot be "imposed." The content of
one's meaning makes no difference, only the personal
commitment.
Today, existentialism is no longer the province of the
avante garde French novelists in cafes. It is entered
popular culture. It has become the philosophy of soap
operas and talk shows. Its tenants shape political discourse
and are transforming the legal system. Existentialism is the
philosophical basis for Post-modernism. 8
There are many existentialists today who have never heard of the
term. They just live it out. Lesslie Newbigin shares Peter Berger's astute
observation about the social outcome of existentialism in contemporary life:
... the distinctive fact about the Modem West from all premodern cultures is that there is no generally acknowledged
"plausibility structure," the acceptance of which is taken for
granted without argument, and dissent from which is
regarded as heresy. A "plausibility structure" is a social
structure of ideas and practices which creates the conditions
which determine whether a belief is plausible. To hold
beliefs outside this plausibility structure is to be a heretic in
the original sense of the word haeresis, that is to say, one
who makes his own decisions.
In pre-modem cultures there is a stable plausibility structure
and only the rare individual questions it. It is just "how
things are and have always been." In modem societies, by
contrast, we are required to make our own decisions, for
there is no accepted plausibility structure. Each one has to
have faith of his own. We are all required, in the original
59
sense, to be heretics. 9
It is in a real sense then, that everyone is "in their own world." At
least their own intellectual world. Posnnodem spirituality then is a spirituality
without truth. Like a cafeteria with its array of "choices" the New Spirituality
is chosen on aesthetic grounds. Veith notes the contrast between a modem
and a posnnodem outlook, with its resulting spiritual consequences:
Modernists did not believe the bible is true. Postmodernists
have cast out the category of truth altogether. In doing so,
they have opened up a Pandora's box of New Age religions,
syncretism, and moral chaos. 10
Thinking Broadly
Before we look at examples of the New Spirituality, I want to paint
the big picture of the larger New Age phenomena. Most of what we will see
is rooted in a pantheistic II framework. However, as James Sire perceives,
New Age thought shares in at least three world views:
"like naturalism, New Age thought denies the existence of
a transcendent God. There is no Lord of the Universe
unless it be each of us .. .It also borrows from naturalism the
hope of evolutionary change. We are poised on the brink
of a new being ... Like both theism and naturalism, and
unlike Eastern pantheistic monism, the New Age places
great value on the individual person ... 12
Yet the New Age shares with the East in its mystical experience
orientation, which rejects reason as a guide to ultimate reality. Sire also sees
in New Age thinking some animistic strands. JJ Animism is the orientation of
the so-called "primal" or pagan religions, which see the universe as inhabited
by countless spiritual beings. These spirits range from vicious to kind. To
get by, people have to placate the evil spirits and woo the good spirits. To
our aid come the witch doctors and shamans who attempt to control the spirit
world. I would not be surprised if, in the coming years, animism becomes the
dominant way of thought in the New Age Movement. I say so because
60
pantheism is too abstract for the average person. In addition, human beings
are incurably religious, preferring ritual's concreteness to the abstractions of
philosophy. So, New Age thought is a loose worldview with roots in three
other worldviews--Naturalism, Pantheism, Animism. The vocabulary of
Christian theism is often borrowed and reinterpreted. Groothuis gives us a
broad conceptual framework for Wlderstanding much of the New Spirituality.
His chart will help us navigate our way through the mist of the New
Spirituality without wrecking our boat on the shoals.
As is evident from the chart on the following pages, the New Age
concept of God is essentially pantheistic. While borrowing heavily from
Christian vocabulary, "God" tends to be portrayed as an impersonal force or
energy. "But," as Chandler notes, "the God of the New Age is nobody
special. He--or rather, it--is everything. There is nothing that isn't God. 1114
To give it all the feel of a "hip" Christianity, Jesus can be fit in this scenario.
Chandler says, "He is one of the enlightened masters who was conscious of
his divinity. Not that he was Wlique, he just saw what was true of all of us.
Humanity's problem is that problem is that we lack the perception of
ourselves as God. "IS Let's tum to some of today's popular spiritual writers,
the prophets and priestesses of the present darkness.
Popular Spokesperson
The authors here represent the "diffuse sentiment" we could call the
New Spirituality. What they teach is appealing to many people because it says
what we want to hear. Veith says ofpostmodem spirituality:
Today religion is not seen as a set of beliefs about what is
real and what is not. Rather, religion is a preference, a
choice. We believe in what we like. We believe in what
we want. 16
The people I chose as representatives of the New Spirituality are
fairly mainstream. They are all best-selling authors and I found their books
outside the New Age section of the bookstore and the Public Library. Unlike
Shirley MacLaine, who is snickered at by many, these authors command
respect by many in the medical and scientific communities.
61
ComDarison chart of Humanist, New Age and Christian World View!7
NaturalismlHumanism
New Age
Christian Theism
Nature of God
Uni verse is selfexistent; God is
superstition
God is the world;
pantheism; God is
impersonaVamoral
Creator!creation
distinction; God
is personal/moral
Nature of the World
Matter!energy
Spirit!consciousness
Matter & Spirit
Basic for Knowledge
Reason & science;
Observable phenomena
The truth is within;
Intuition
God's Revelation
Ethics
Autonomous & Situational (relative)
Autonomous &
Situational (relative)
Based on God's
character (absolute)
Nature of Humans
Evolved animal
Spiritual being, a
sleeping god
Made in the image of
God, but now fallen
Hwnan Problem
Superstition,
ignorance
Ignorance of true
potential
Alienated or separated
from God, a moral
problem
The Answer to
Problems
Reason & technology
Change in consciousness
Faith in Christ's
work on our behalf
Death
End of existence
Illusion; entrance
to next life
Entrance to either
eternal heaven or hell
View of Religion
Superstition with
some good moral
teaching
All point to the
one; (syncretism)
Not all from God;
teach different things
View of Jesus Christ
Moral teacher
One of many
avatars (periodic
manifestations of
God-guru)
The unique God-Man,
only Lord & Savior
!
,
i
M . Scott Peck, M.D .
Peck is a Harvard-educated psychotherapist whose book, The Road
Less Traveled, has been on the New York Times best-seller list for over ten
years. It was holding #2 on the paperback list as of May 8, 1994. More than
a few people I have talked to were confused as to whether Peck was writing
from a Christian position. Some assumed that he was because his books are
sold in some Christian bookstores. For this reason, I will quote somewhat
extensively from Peck. What emerges from a careful reading is not Biblical
theology.
In the introduction to A Road Less Traveled, Peck says he makes "no
distinction between the mind and the spirit, and therefore no distinction
between the process of achieving spiritual growth and mental growth." To
Peck, "They are one and the same. "18 While from a Biblical perspective we
would expect spiritual growth to produce mental growth, mental growth could
take place without anything positively spiritual resulting. As Paul said to
Timothy, some people are "always learning but never coming to a knowledge
of the truth" (2 -Tim. 3:7). The human mind is not God's Spirit. The sinful
mind is hostile to God and does not submit to the law of God (Rom. 8:7).
Peck believes that most people suffer from a tendency 'to define
religion too narrowly." What he means by that is people who would criticize
non-Christian religions like Buddhism or Unitarianism. We should not,
according to Peck view religion as "something monolithic." His path of
spiritual growth is described:
We begin by distrusting what we already believe, by
actively seeking the threatening and the unfamiliar, by
deliberately challenging the validity of what we have
previously been taught and hold dear. The path of holiness
lies through questioning everything [italics his] ... We begin
by replacing the religion of our parents with the religion of
science. We must rebel against and reject the religion of
our parents, for inevitably their world view will be
narrower than that which we are capable, if we take full
advantage of our personal experience, including our adult
experience and the experience of an additional generation of
human history. There is no such thing as hand-me-down
64
religion. To be vital , our religion must be a wholly
personal one, forged entirely through the fire of questioning
and doubting in the crucible of our own experience of
reality. 19
While it certainly is true that each person has to come to their own
conclusion about the truth and they must internalize their own convictions,
this process builds on certain sources of information and traditions that are
external to the person (religious writings, human authorities, peer pressures,
etc.). Some presuppositions or "givens" must be chosen. Even Peck's idea
of questioning everything is a presupposition namely that not questioning
everything is a weakness or barrier to truth. Peck seems to think we can
perform demolition on all traditional sources to truth (which would include the
Bible) and still have something left to build with. He also assumes that one's
parent's religious views are "inevitably narrower." This idea assumes that
each generation improves in its insight, which is part of Peck's evolutionary
optimism.
In Scripture, this is simply not the case. In 2 Tim. 1:5, Paul says,
"I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your
grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded, now lives
in you also." In 3: 14, 15 he is further told, "continue in what you learned,
knowing from who you have learned it, and how from infancy you have
known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation ... "
Timothy did not have to go out and find a different religion than his parents
or his parents' parents. To be sure, a parent's faith is not passed on
automatically, but it can be explained. A son or daughter can be persuaded
of the truthfulness of his/her parents' worldview. It seems to me that Peck is
advocating the kind of deconstruction of authority that made the
counterculture of the sixties so tumultuous. All we have left after this
demolition is "truth in one's own head. "
As we go beyond the religion of our parents and then beyond the
religion of science, we come to own our fresh idea of God:
The God that comes before skepticism may bear little
resemblance to the God that comes after. As I mentioned
at the beginning of this section, there is no single monolithic
religion. There are many religions, and perhaps many
65
levels to belief. So.me religio.ns may be unhealthy fo.r so.me
peo.ple; o.thers may be healthy. 20
lbat it "bears little resemblance" is an Wlderstatement. What a tragic
descriptio.n o.f what happens to. a naive Christian who. beco.mes "captured by
philo.so.phy and empty deceptio.n" (Co.l. 2:8). If Peck's denial o.f a "single
mo.no.lithic religio.n" is no.t a direct swipe at Christianity, I do.n't kno.w what
is. It seems that Peck has a pragmatic criteria o.f truth. If it "wo.rks, " i.e. if
it is "healthy", that's what matters.
The God that comes after skepticism fo.r Peck is a pantheistic "deity. "
He packages his versio.n o.f pantheism as a bold idea fo.r the inner directed
man:
Why does God want us to. grow? What is it that Go.d wants
o.f us? ... Fo.r no. matter ho.w much we may like to pussyfo.o.t
aro.Wld it, all o.f us who. postulate a lo.ving Go.d and really
think about it, eventually co. me to. a single terrifying idea:
God wants us to beco.me Himself (o.r Herself o.r Itself). We
are gro.wing toward godho.o.d. Go.d is the go.al o.f evo.lutio.n.
It is Go.d who. is the so.urce o.f the evo.lutio.nary fo.rce and
Go.d who. is the destinatio.n .. .It is the single mo.st
demanding idea in the histo.ry o.f mankind ... It is o.ne things
to believe in a nice o.ld Go.d who. will take go.o.d care o.f us
from a lo.fty positio.n o.f power which we o.urselves co.uld
never attain. It is quite ano.ther to. believe in a Go.d who. has
it in mind fo.r us precisely that we sho.uld attain His
positio.n, His power, His wisdo.m, His identity.21
Peck tries to make the wo.rld's o.ldest and easiest fo.rm o.f spirituality
so.und difficult and challenging, while painting the surrender o.f o.ur proud
auto.no.my as childish dependence. Our problem, acco.rding to. Peck, is that
we shy away fro.m beco.ming Go.d. Mo.st peo.ple are to.o. lazy and passive to.
seek go.dho.o.d. He go.es o.n to. say:
Were we to believe it possible fo.r man to. beco.me Go.d, this
belief by its very nature wo.uld place upon us an obligatio.n
to attain the possible. But we do.n't want this o.bligatio.n, we
66
don't want to have to work that hard. We don 't want God 's
responsibility. As long as we can believe that godhood is
an impossible attainment for ourselves, we don't have to
worry about our spiritual growth; we don't have to push
ourselves to higher and higher levels of consciousness and
loving activity, we can just relax and be hwnan. 22
Only a lazy wimp would not want to be God! So it will have to be
the few and the proud who are willing to take on this noble task of sacrifice.
The "hard work" that Peck says we are too lazy to do is to listen to the god
within:
In debating the wisdom of a proposed course of action,
human beings routinely fail to obtain God's side of the
issue. They fail to consult the God within them, the
knowledge of rightness which inherently resides in the
minds of all mankind. We make this failure because we are
lazy. 23
Lest we be still unconvinced of Peck's pantheism, note how he
explains the evolution of consciousness:
I know of no hypothesis as satisfactory as the postulation of
a God who is intimately associated with us--so intimately
that He is part of us. If you want to know the closet place
to look for grace, it is within your self. If you desire
wisdom greater than you own, you can find it inside you.
What this suggests is that the interface between man and
God is at least in part the interface between our unconscious
and our conscious. To put it plainly, our unconscious is
God. God within us. We were part of God all the time.
God has been with us all along, is now, and always with
be. 24
When all is said and done, Peck's version of spirituality is a rehash
of eastern pantheism with a Western individualistic flavor. He does not paint
the image of absorption into God. Rather, God is absorbed into you. The
67
human individual retains herself. Much of the book preaches a "pick yourself
up from your own bootstraps" mentality with the ear-tickling "psychospiritual" theology that was cited above.
Deepak Chopra
If Peck is the therapeutic high priest of the new spirituality, Deepak
Chopra is the "surgeon general" of alternative healing. Chopra is also a bestselling author (he has written fourteen books) and physician. He was born
and raised in India, but now lives and works in the Boston area. He
established the American Association of Ayurvedic (a branch of Hinduism)
Medicine. In 1992 he was appointed to the National Institutes of Health and
hoc panel on alternative medicine. Chopra is truly a modem guru, combining
most skillfully the ideas of the East and the West--Hinduism and science,
materialism and spiritualism. He has been written about in Money, People
Weekly, and Psychology Today, as well as having had articles published by
The Journal of American Medical Association. Money called Chopra a
"financial spiritualist."25 While Hare Krishnas and the Guru Maharaj Ji may
frighten off most westerners, Chopra appeals directly to what we want most
in America: health and wealth. His book Creating AjJluence is a daily
reader on how to get rich by changing your perception of reality. Chopra
advises that its contents be "metabolized" in the consciousness of the reader
by reading it over and over. He holds out a bold promise:
All of material creation, everything that we can see, hear,
taste, or smell is made from the same stuff and comes from
the same source. Experiential knowledge of this fact gives
us the ability to fulfill any desire we have, acquire any
material object we want, and experience happiness to any
extent we aspire.
Before we go into these principals, I would like to discuss
what science, and particularly physics, has to say about the
nature of the universe we live in ... According to quantwn
field theorists, all material things--whether they are
automobiles, human bodies, or dollar bills--are made up of
atoms. These atoms are made up of subatomic particles
68
which, in tum, are fluctuations of energy and information
in huge void of energy and information .. . the basic
conclusion of quantum field theorists is that the raw
material of the world is non-material; the essential stuff of
the universe is non-stuff... And this is the overthrow of the
superstition of materialism. 26
Like many of the proponents of the new spirituality, Chopra wants
his views in science. The highly disputed field of quantum physics
is a favorite "proof" for pantheism by many today. This is a big change from
some of the earlier pantheistic prophets who were anti-science. Chopra shows
great cleverness as he smuggles in ancient Hindu pantheism in the guise of
science and economic strategy. Not only can we be wealthy with a change of
perception, but we can also be healthy--even immortal if we learn how to
think right. In his very popular Ageless Body. Timeless Mind: The Ouantum
Alternative to Growing Old, Chopra avoids subtlety altogether.
He
immediately sets out to break our confidence in conventional reason, the
western way of perceiving reality:
to ground
I would like you to join me on a journey of discovery. We
will explore a place where the rules of everyday existence
do not apply. These rules explicitly state that to grow old,
become frail, and die is the ultimate destiny of
all ... However, I want you to suspend your assumptions
about what we call reality so that we can become pioneers
in a land where youthful vigor, renewal, joy, fulfillment
and timelessness are the common experience of everyday
life, where old age, senility, infirmity and death do not exist
and are not even entertained as a possibility.
If there is such a place, what is preventing us from going
there? It is our conditioning, our current collective
worldview that we were taught by our parents, teachers,
and society. This way of seeing things--the old paradigm-has been aptly called "the hypnosis of social conditioning, "
an induced fiction in which we have collectively agreed to
participate. 27
69
Like most pantheisms, Chopra's claims that what our senses tell us
is inadequate and often deceptive. Chopra goes on to ask us to discard
conventional western assumptions in favor of a "new paradigm." I have
included his assumptions verbatim because they so capture the essence of New
Age pantheism .
. . . In order to create the experience of ageless body and
timeless mind, which is the promise of this book, you must
discard ten assumptions about who you are and what the
true nature of body and mind is. These assumptions are the
bedrock of our shared worldview. They are:
OLD PARADIGM
NEW PARADIGM
1. There is an objective world
independent of the observer, &
our bodies are an aspect of this
objective world.
1. The physical world, including
our bodies, is a response of the
observer. We create our bodies as
we create the experience of our
world.
2. The body is composed of
clumps of matter separated from
one another in time & space.
2. In their essential state, our
bodies are composed of energy &
information, not solid matter. This
energy & information is an outcropping of infinite fields of
energy & information sparming the
universe.
3. Mind & body are independent
from each other.
3. The mind & body are
inseparably one.
4. Materialism is primary,
consciousness is secondary. In
other words, we are physical
machines that learned to think.
4. The bio-chemistry of the body;
is a product of awareness. Beliefs,
thoughts & emotions create the
chemical reactions that uphold life
in every cell.
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5. Human awareness can be
completely explained as a product
of bio-chemistry.
5. Perception appears to be
automatic, but is in fact learned.
The world you live in, including
the experience of your body, is
completely dictated by how you
learned to perceive it. If you
change your perception, you
change the experience of your
body & your world.
6. As individuals, we are
disconnected, self contained
entities.
6. Impulses of intelligence create
your body in new forms every
second.
7. Our perception of the word is
automatic & gives us an accurate
picture of the way things really
are.
7. AltI:t0ugh each person seems
separate & independent, all of us
are connected to patterns of
intelligence that govern the whole
cosmos. Our bodies are part of a
universal body, our minds an aspect of a universal mind.
8. Our true nature is totally
defined by the body, ego, &
personality. We are wisps of
memories & desires enclosed in
flesh & bones.
8. Time does not exist as an
absolute, but only eternity. What
we call linear time is a reflection
of how we perceive change. If we
could perceive the changeless,
time would cease to exist as we
know it. We can learn to start
metabolizing non-change, eternity,
the absolute. By doing that, we
will be ready to create the physio- .
logy of immortality.
9. Time exists as an absolute, &
we are captives of that absolute.
No one escapes the ravages of
time.
9. Each of us inhabits a reality
lying beyond all change.
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10. Suffering is necessary--it is
part of reality. We are inevitable
victims of sickness, aging and
death.
10. We are not victims of aging,
sickness & death. These are part
of the scenery, not the seer, who
is immune to any form of change.
The seer is the spirit, the expression of eternal being.
Now that's a heavy assault! And he does it, not in an appendix
buried at the end of the book, but right at the beginning! Apparently that is
not scaring readers off. Notice how Chopra has said the same things that
eastern religion has taught without it sounding religious. The word "god" is
not used at all in this chart.
No wonder Chandler views the area of holistic health as perhaps the
major carrier of the New Age: "The market for the products, as well as the
techniques of chiropractic and massage, is likely to endure and grow as more
and more Americans become concerned about self-care, wellness, and everrising costs of professional health systems. "28
Marianne Williamson
Another avenue of expose to the new spirituality is the recovery
movement. Marianne Williamson's experience mirrors that of many other
baby-boomers who grew up with a sense of estrangement from their parents'
traditional values and religion. Her book A Return to Love reached #1 on the
best-seller list in 1993. This title is stocked not in the New Age section, but
in psychology/self improvement. Through her lectures and writing,
Williamson has popularized the ultra New Age A Course in Miracles, a kind
of pantheistic "bible," which Opra Winfrey has praised on her show.
Like many who teach concepts of New Spirituality, Williamson
believes we need a higher form of "consciousness or knowledge" that is
different from cognitive understanding:
"Love isn't seen with the physical eyes or heard with the
physical ears. The physical senses don't perceive it; it's
perceived through a different kind of vision ... Regardless of
what it's called, love requires a different kind of "seeing"
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than we are used to--a different kind of knowing or
thinking. Love is the intuitive knowledge of our hearts .. 1129
Like Chopra, Williamson wants to bypass the limits of logic and
linear thinking. For her, God is defined as "the love within us .. He is the
energy, the thought of unconditional love. He cannot think with anger or
judgment. "30 This is one of the features of the New Spirituality--an
impersonal god with the personal characteristic of love. It is hard to see how
a "being" that is not distinct from yourself can love you. Yet, the comforting
thing for so many is that the "God" of the new spirituality has no wrath and
does not punish. All of such negative thoughts are seen as human projections.
As for negative or hostile human emotions, they are simply explained away
rather being explained by her system:
Anything that isn't love is an illusion ... When we think with
love we are literally co-creating with God. And when we
are not thinking with love--since only love is real--then
we're actually not thinking at all. We're hallucinating ... sin
is defined as 'loveless perception' ... Love in your mind
produces love in your life. This is the meaning of Heaven.
Fear in your mind produces fear in your life. This is the
meaning of Hell. 31
Like all pantheistic notions, this one has no way to explain why there is evil
and suffering in the world. Simply passing it off as a problem of perception
only implicates God as a lousy creator, since there is no Fall to explain how
this problem began in the first place. For Williamson, our real problem is not
sin in the sense of evil or depravity, but/ear. Here we have one more version
of "we're basically good people who are sad and hurt." Or as someone said,
"Hurt people hurt people." It is no doubt true that unresolved pain is usually
taken out on others. However, that does not have explanatory power
concerning the cause of all evil behavior.
Williamson tries to align herself with Jesus:
The concept of a divine, or 'Christ' mind, is the idea that,
at our core, we are not just identical, but actually the same
being. 'There is only one begotten Son' doesn't mean that
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someone else was it, and we're not. It means we're all it.
There is only one of us here ... The word Christ is a
psychological term ... Christ refers to the common thread of
divine love that is the core and essence of every human
mind. 32
Williamson's pantheism and syncretism show themselves most
strongly here. The exclusive claim for Jesus is turned into a basis of a
universally inclusive pluralism. I find it hard to shake off the question, "why
do so many people who have love at their core seem to bear the fruit of hatred
and violence?" What is the source of human problems? It is amazing how
many books get published that are simply expanding on the Beatles' song, All
You Need is Love. It is a great idea, but in the twenty-seven years since that
song hit the airwaves, no one has been able to make it work apart from Jesus
Christ.
Betty Jean Eadie
Eadie's book, Embraced by the Light was at #1 for the week of May
8. She makes no attempt to be scientific, but the book is representative of
what many Americans are willing to believe. As I read the book, it became
obvious why this book is so popular. It affirms virtually everything the
average American would want to hear, while having not a shred of material
that would offend. If ever there was a book that could be the spiritual
undergirding for political correctness, this is it. What is the basis of its
legitimacy? The experience of being temporarily dead, of course. Eadie
claims to have had an encounter with angels and Jesus himself while her
physical body lay dead in a hospital room. She describes her experience in
vivid imagery:
I felt a surge of energy ... and my spirit was suddenly drawn
out through my chest and pulled upward, as if by a giant
magnet... I was above the bed, hovering near the
ceiling ... My new body was weightless and extremely
mobile ... Before I could move, three men suddenly appeared
at my side ... A kind of glow emanated from them .. J sensed
in them great spirituality, knowledge, and wisdom .. J began
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to think of them as monks-mostly because of the robes--and
I knew I could trust them ... They had been with me for
"eternities", they said... The fact of pre-earth life
crystallized in my mind ... 33
Notice that Eadie perceived things non-cognitively. Like others we
have seen, she places a premium on this "higher mode" of understanding.
The implication is that if something is really important or true it will have to
come to you by bypassing your mind. Notice also her basis for trusting the
spirit beings. She "sensed" it. It was not by evaluating the content of their
claims. I shiver as I recall Paul's warning to the Galatians, "if we or even an
angel from heaven proclaims a gospel contrary let them be accursed" (Gal.
I :8). The beauty of their being tells us nothing about whether they are
benevolent or malevolent spirits (2 Cor. 11: 14). Eadie's Mormon leanings
stand out as well with her claim to have an eternal spirit that had known these
beings from before her entrance into her mortal body ("pre-earth life"). she
goes on to describe some more non-verbal intuitive communication:
They somehow communicated a feeling of peace and told
me not to worry, that everything would be all right. As this
feeling came in me, I sensed their deep love and concern.
These feelings and other thoughts were communicated to
me from spirit to spirit--from intelligence to intelligence.
At first, I thought they were using their mouths, but this
was because I was used to people "speaking." They
communicated much more rapidly and completely, in a
manner they referred to as "pure knowledge." The closet
word we have in English to define it is telepathy, but even
that does not describe the full process. I felt their emotions
and intents. Ifelt their love. I experienced their feelings. 34
[emphasis mine]
Eadie displays the frightening faith in the authority of feelings that
has so engulfed our culture. If you feel love, how could it be questioned?
Like Deepak Chopra, Eadie also has her own version of creating your own
reality. She believes that "Simply by thinking positive thoughts and speaking
positive words we attract positive energy ... We can create our own
75
surroundings by the thoughts we think .. . " Then, in an incredible example of
reality turned on its head she says, "I understood that life is lived most fully
in the imagination--that, ironically, imagination is the key to reality. "35 One
may wonder, was her near death experience imagination or reality? In
another example of her distrust of reason she shares her interpretation of 2
Cor. 5:7:
We are to live by faith, not by sight. Sight is involved with
the cognitive, the analytical mind. It rationalizes and
justifies. Faith is governed by the spirit. The spirit is
emotional, accepting, and internalizes... the spirit is
mystery to most people. I saw that it functions, generally,
without the mind even being aware of it. 36
As she goes on describing her experience, Eadie reveals a pantheistic
flavor:
As I approached it [the light], I saw the figure of a man
standing in it. .. I felt his light blending in to mine, literally,
and I felt my light being drawn to his .. .It is hard to tell
where one light ends and the other begins; they just become
one light. .. As our lights merged, I felt as if I had stepped
into his countenance, and I felt an utter explosion of love. 37
In an even more disturbing example of contentless, experiencecentered religion, she recounts:
As I approached the water, I noticed a rose near me that
seemed to stand out from the other flowers .. .It was gently
swaying to faint music, and singing praises to the Lord with
sweet tones of its own. I realized I could actually see it
growing .. .! wanted to experience its life, to step into it and
feel its spirit. As this thought came to me, I seemed to be
able to see down into it. .. But it was much more than a
visual experience. I felt the rose's presence around me, as
if I were actually inside the flower. I experienced it as if I
76
were the flower. .. My joy was absolutely full again! I felt
God in the plant, in me, his love pouring into us. We were
all one! I will never forget the rose that I was. 38
Eadie even was "informed" in heaven about the abortion issue.
Notice how it attempts to placate both sides of the battle:
I learned that spirits can choose to enter their mother's body
Once there, they
at any stage of her pregnancy.
immediately begin experiencing mortality. Abortion, I was
told, is contrary to that which is natural. The spirit coming
into the body feels a sense of rejection and sorrow ... But the
spirit also feels compassion for its mother, knowing that she
made a decision based on the knowledge she had. 39
The popularity of Eadie's book is a chilling example of the epistemological
relativism discussed earlier. If nothing is true, then everything is true. At the
end of the book, Eadie says she feels no need to give evidence for the tale.
The authority is in the experience. If Eadie is believable, who will be branded
a heretic?
A Christian response to the New Spirituality is desperately needed
in our day. People are naively falling prey to the promises of these false
prophets. A strategy for discipleship and apologetics for the 1990's is beyond
the scope of this writing. My desire here was simply to acquaint the Christian
reader with the various "roach hotels" of the New SpirituaIity so that s/he
would be moved to be a better herald of the truth and shepherd of the flock.
Sire captures the insidious nature of New Age deception:
The danger of self deception, the certainty of self deception
is the great weakness. No theist or naturalist--no one at all-can deny the "experience" of perceiving oneself to be a
god, a spirit, a devil or a cockroach. For maily people give
such reports. But as long as self is king, so long as
imagination is presupposed to be reality, so long as seeing
is being, the imagining, seeing self remains securely locked
in its private universe--the only one there is. So long as the
self likes what it imagines and is truly in control of what it
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imagines, others on the "outside" have nothing to offer. 40
My plea to the reader is not to shrink from the challenge of bringing
these deeply deceived men and women of our day to the kingdom the living
God. We cannot afford to let laughter, contempt or fear be our apologetic.
ENDNOTES
IFrancis A. Shaeffer, Escape from Reason,(Downers Grove, IL:
Varsity, 1968) 7 .
Inter
. ~ussell Chandler, Understanding the New Age (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1991, 1993) 43,45.
30S
Guinness, The American Hour (New York: Free Press, 1993) 70.
4Ibid., The Dust of Death (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994) 276.
5John Polkinghorne, One World: The Interaction of Science and Theology
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986) p. 4,5.
6Ibid., 5
7Frederick B. Burnham, ed., Postmodern Theology: Christian Faith in a
Pluralist World (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989) ix, x.
8Gene Edward Veith, Postmodern Times:
A Christian Guide to
Contemporary Thought and Culture (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1994) 37,
38.
9Lesslie Newbigin, "Can the West be Converted?" International Bulletin of
Missionary Research January 1987, 2.
IOGene Edward Veith, Postmodern Times, 193.
78
IIGeisler and Clark say this about pantheism: "Pantheism etymologically
means 'All is God.' The word was first used by John Toland, an Irish deist,
in 1705. The world view is based on key idea that all of reality is one. (This
is called 'monism'.) Anything real is interrelated with everything else that is
real. There may be forms or levels of reality, but in the final analysis, all
reality is unified ontologically, that is, in its being. No qualitative distinctions
can differentiate real things. There is no definite contrast between an eternal
Creator and a temporal creature. The ultimate reality, God, alone is real.
Insofar as you and I are real, you and I are part of God." Norman L. Geisler
and David C. Clark, Apologetics in the New Age (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker
Book House, 1990) 8. The authors go on to discuss five different variations
of pantheism. It is important to keep in mind that, while pantheism can be
generalized about, it has quite diverse expressions around the world. There
is not one simple form of "eastern thought. "
12James Sire, The Universe Next Door (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 1988) 165, 166.
13Ibid., 166.
14Russell Chandler, Understanding the New Age, 29.
15Ibid., 34.
17Gene Edward Veith, Postmodern Times, 193.
16 Adapted from Douglas Groothuis, Unmasking the New Age (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986) 167.
18M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Touchstone Books,
1978) 11.
19Ibid., 194.
2°lbid., 224.
21Ibid., 269, 270.
79
22Ibid., 270.
23Ibid., 273.
24Ibid., 281.
25Elizabeth MacDonald , Money Newsline, Money December 1993, 20.
26Deepak Chopra, Creating Affluence: Wealth Consciousness in the Field of
All Possibilities (San Rafael, CA: New World Library, 1993) 18, 19.
27Deepak Chopra, Ageless Body. Timeless Mind: The Ouantum Alternative
to Growing Old (New York: Harmony Books, 1993) 3.
~ussell Chandler, Understanding the New Age (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1991, 1993) 158.
29Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principals of
A COURSE IN MIRACLES (New York: HarperCollins, 1992) xix.
3OIbid., 17, 18.
3IIbid., 21.
32Ibid., 29.
33Betty J. Eadie, Embraced by the Light (Placerville, CA: Gold Leaf Press,
1992) 29-31.
34Ibid., 32.
35Ibid., 58, 59.
36Ibid., 65, 66.
37Ibid., 41.
80
38Ibid., 80, 81.
39Ibid., 95.
40James Sire, The Universe Next Door, 171.
Bibliography
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Pluralist World. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989.
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Clark, David K. and Geisler, Nonnan L. Apologetics in the New Age.
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Guinness, Os. The American Hour. New York: Free Press, 1993.
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81
Sire, James. The Universe Next Door. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
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